$1,522 Health Insurance for Berkeley

<p>*If you choose to waive out of the University Student Health Insurance program, this amount will be deducted from your student budget. If you do not choose to waive out, the Financial Aid Office will offer you additional aid for this cost once the waiver deadline has passed for the term.</p>

<p>^that's what it says on my FA page
So if we don't opt out, will the FA office give us the full $1522 more to cover this fee? And if we do opt out, we'll still have the same amount of FA that was initially offered to us, right?</p>

<p>I remember reading somewhere on the page that if you do get the health insurance that they’ll adjust your FA package (meaning they’ll give you more aid).</p>

<p>I think I’m going to opt out of this because I am already fortunate enough to have health insurance. But I wonder how much coverage all the students get under the student health insurance program. hmm</p>

<p>really if you opt out they adjust your FA package accordingly???</p>

<p>hmm…idk that sounds too cool…</p>

<p>anybody know the real deal about this thing???</p>

<p>When I opted out from the UCLA one my financial aid package did not change. I assume they think you will use that extra income on your own health insurance.</p>

<p>And I don’t know about the cal one, but the one at UCLA is pretty shyty. I guess, duh, because it’s so cheap. If you don’t have a lot of health problems, it’s cool, but I wouldn’t recommend if you have to take monthly meds or anything (I have migraines and really expensive meds for them so I stayed on my family’s really great plan, thank god, and thanks to obama I can now stay until after I graduate too wooooooooooo).</p>

<p>A SHIP rep told me that if i opt out of coverage, that amount will be deducted from my aid.</p>

<p>^so basically, we might as well just leave it on there then…since our FA is paying for it. </p>

<p>but that contradicts what the statement says about how they’ll add more $$ to our FA if we decide to keep the insurance. bc that means the package we got initially shouldn’t and doesn’t cover our health insurance. so they have no right to take out any financial aid if we opt out</p>

<p>Again, it wasn’t deducted from my aid last year, so I don’t know what to tell you. The departments here don’t often work together to figure stuff out. I don’t know if Cal is any better. </p>

<p>Here’s the thing: they give you a certain amount for health insurance. You need it regardless of whether of not you pick the school insurance. They SHOULDN’T reduce aid if you don’t pick the school insurance. That’s ■■■■■■■■. Because you would still need to provide for you own insurance right? The school can’t assume you opt out of SHIP and let your parents pay for you… perhaps you just want better coverage than the shyty school plan. So, you fin. aid package still has to consider you need money for your health insurance… which, again, you’re required to get, which means they count as cost of living, which means if you are poor enough for full aid they cover that too.</p>